


this feels like falling in love

by astersandstuffs



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Hunters, Canon Compliant, Childhood Friends, College, Cuddling & Snuggling, Established Relationship, Ficlet Collection, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Light Angst, Love Confessions, M/M, Mutual Pining, Post-Canon, Reunions, Supernatural Elements, cuddly iwaizumi, iwaoiweek2017
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-05
Updated: 2017-06-27
Packaged: 2018-10-27 04:12:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10801449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astersandstuffs/pseuds/astersandstuffs
Summary: day 1: college“Iwa-chan,” Tooru lilts, carding a hand through his favorite mess of spiky hair even as Iwaizumi is trying with all his might to burrow his face into Tooru’s sweater. “I know you’ve always been a physical guy, but I never guessed you'd be this shamelessly cuddly.”day 2: firstsIn some ways, they're not each other's first times.day 4: paranoia“I just complimented you,” Tooru argues with a huff. “You're literally shirtless and I have my claws just a breadth away from your spine and your pretty little neck. Are you in any position to threaten me?”day 5: free day“—I mean, you don't even kiss me in public!”day 7: hellos“Come here,” Hajime says, when Oikawa insists on staying outside and drenched in the rain.extra - immortalityOn choosing to live forever.





	1. this feels like falling in love

**Author's Note:**

> a lot of thanks to [Kat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miah_Kat/pseuds/Miah_Kat) for the last-minute beta!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...after some debate, i turned this into a ficlet collection for iwaoiweek2017 (^人^)

“Iwa-chan,” Tooru lilts, carding a hand through his favorite mess of spiky hair even as Iwaizumi is trying with all his might to burrow his face into Tooru’s sweater. “I know you’ve always been a physical guy, but I never guessed you'd be this shamelessly cuddly.”

“'mells good,” Iwaizumi grunts in return, muffled from where he's got his nose and mouth pressed against Tooru’s stomach.

—and Tooru's E.T. sweater is quite thick and warm and comfy, but it’s also all sorts of stifling right now, _too few_ and _too many_ layers between them at once.

He huffs. “What are you, a dog?” he teases, unusually high-pitched, and thanks whatever passing deity willing to listen that Iwaizumi is too preoccupied to notice it.

When Iwaizumi just breathes out something relieved, tension in his shoulders unwinding, the arms he’s wrapped around Tooru's middle tightening, it feels like such an intimate moment. Tooru almost finds himself an intruder.

His gaze wanders—to Iwaizumi's backpacks dropped by the genkan (oh, he’s prepared to stay), to the cups of tea and hot chocolate he’s served them both (now getting colder by the minutes), to the kotatsu's warmth (always a thing of comfort).

—to the warmth by his side, _Iwaizumi Hajime_ , ever-persistent to stay and catch up with a restless monster like him; _Iwaizumi Hajime_ , so tangible and present, and for the first time in six months since he's enrolled in college, Tooru might let himself think not of the practices and studies he’ll accumulate for the future but of _now_ , and being here to cuddle and indulge in each other’s presence.

His hand wanders, too, gently scratching at Iwaizumi's scalp—the way he _knows_ Iwaizumi likes, if his faintest shiver is any confirmation—as it drifts lower to rest on his nape. He thumbs at the hairline there, soft pinpricks of hair fading into Iwaizumi's heated skin.

“How's being a med student going?” Tooru asks, a tad obnoxiously louder than necessary, because Iwaizumi might've missed his voice as well.

Iwaizumi groans. “No, you dumbass. Weren't you the one who dragged me out of exam crunch in high school? And now you're asking this first thing?”

“Hmm. But Iwa-chan is so _passionate_.”

Iwaizumi just nuzzles further, his cheek against Tooru’s ticklish side. Tooru tenses—but Iwaizumi’s merciful for now. “I’m tired as fuck,” he says. “But I guess I like it. So it's okay. It's kinda like dealing with you.”

“Oh? How so?”

“Driving me crazy, but I throw myself at it for more.”

(Oh.)

(And it's getting a bit _too_ warm here for winter.

Maybe Tooru should check if the heater is malfunctioning.)

Tooru bites at the inside of his cheeks to keep from laughing. “Iwa-chan, is that your way of flirting with me?”

“Ngh, shut up,” Iwaizumi grumbles. His face is entirely squished into Tooru's sweater by now.

“Iwa-chaaan, let me look at your blushing maiden face.”

“I hate you.”

“Aww, I think you're cute, too.”

Iwaizumi grunts again. Tooru takes note to swaddle him in a blanket burrito this evening, perhaps with a marathon of _Alien vs. Predator_ at his own insistence and agedashi tofu and milk bread on the side. Iwaizumi might be a brute, but he's only reduced to this level of caveman speak when he's exhausted.

“I really do, you know,” Tooru tells him. “I think you're cute and passionate about what you love, and that you're hard-working and push yourself a lot—sometimes a little too much, because you're still a dummy, but that's what I’m here for, I guess—and you sleep like a dog, sometimes all curled up and other times you hog all the damn space, but even so you're unfairly cute—”

“ _Oh my god_ , shut up.”

This time, Iwaizumi squeezes Tooru with a real portion of his arm strength, enough to make Tooru cough out a breath, and _oh_ , his neck and the tips of his ears are undeniably red right now—and Tooru thinks to not be embarrassed by his own flush and breathlessness, when Iwaizumi just reciprocates the sentiment.

Tooru grins. “Make me.”

And so Iwaizumi does, with a tackle down to the floor, climbing to loom above Tooru, and lips all soft. _I missed you_ , the two of them convey by their shared breaths. _I've got you now_ , they let the other know, by kisses and touches meeting like they'd like to hold on forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> feedback is loved and appreciated (^ ^)
> 
> [tumblr post.](http://astersandstuffs.tumblr.com/post/160350079899/this-feels-like-falling-in-love)


	2. this feels like falling in love

"Hey, Iwa-chan, what do you think of living forever?”

This is when Tooru chooses to ask such a question—the start of high school, the two of them donned in Aoba Johsai’s blue and white and getting ready for their first practice, and as Hajime’s copying the knot on his right shoe to his left. In turn, he doesn't look away from the task.

“What, like if you don't find your soulmate?”

“Well, how else can we live forever?”

 _We, huh._ Hajime wonders if Tooru thinks of _forever_ in the context of them, and chides himself for such pointless observations. Because he might've been observing this best friend of his since forever (and the other boy, the same), but it doesn't make him immune to the dangerous waters of wishful thinking.

“Humans are crazy shits,” Hajime says. He secures the shoelaces with a final twist, goes to stand with some sort of conviction, and starts his warm-up. A light kick with the toe of his shoe prods Tooru out of his crouch from where he's been staring intently at Hajime, urging him to do the same, and Hajime just trudges past the exclaimed _how rude!_ “We’ll figure something out.”

“Hmm.” Arms raised high and skyward, Tooru gives a pleased sound at the stretch. Hajime tears his gaze away from the line of skin exposed by the lifted shirt. “We haven't come up with the one-hundred percent scientific explanation for soulmates.”

“Well,” Hajime says, “it's _soul_ mate, after all. Something unquantifiable. Why’re you asking this _now_ , anyway?”

There's volleyball to play, new techniques to learn and teammates to know, but throwing quips back and forth has become instinctive when they’ve been doing it with each other ever since they could babble without words.

“It's weird, isn't it? Finding true love is supposed to be like _happily ever after_ , like fairy tales, but instead it's what triggers us to age and die.”

This, too; when Tooru runs and jumps, from topics of discussion to a race down the road, the run uphill, Hajime just catches up. He dodges questions and takes pleasure in letting Hajime connect the clues, the scattered slips. But perhaps that's because Hajime is the only one who can.

“There’s no push to do stuff together when you have all the time you don't need, when you have _forever_ together. It's like how we eat because we’ll get hungry later.”

Tooru stares at him, unblinking, and it sort of pisses Hajime off because it's the kind he does at Ushiwaka when he says things along the lines of _choosing the wrong path_ and _infertile soil_. “Wow,” Tooru mutters, all pretend-baffled, and gives up a snort—awkward sounding and certainly not pretty and _why the hell does it make Hajime want to smile_ —hiding it behind a loose fist. “Iwa-chan, I know you're stupid, but comparing that to being hungry is a new low.”

The coach calling them for a line up is the only thing that saves him from Hajime's wrath. Still, Oikawa Tooru has picked up another obsession, this time on the subject of _forever_ more than soulmate itself, and he's never one to do things half-way.

On the walk home from school—“Would it be like dreaming?”

"What?"

“The forever thing.”

“Oh, it's _a thing_ now?”

In the middle of the match—tugging on Hajime's sweat-saturated jersey and gesturing him to lean close, only to whisper, “Would it be like counting years?” instead of some morally questionable strategy to crush the opposite team.

During a lab experiment—“Would it be traveling all over the world, and there are always new places to visit and things to discover?” he asks, past the girls murmuring behind their backs, as he nudges a pair of glasses to settle back on the bridge of his nose.

“Why do you care?” Hajime takes the query ahead of Tooru one day. It's the first night of summer training camp in Tokyo, and a glance at the clock above the gym’s doors tells him it's 10PM. They're a sweaty mess sprawled on the floor side by side, all growing pains and aches from the extended practice, just between the two of them once the others whistled at their stamina and bid farewell, their senpai with a _“don't push too hard, first-years!”_ —because of course a powerhouse's training regime isn’t enough for Tooru, and of course Hajime wants to improve awfully the same, if slightly more rational about expectations and the likes.

So, Hajime asks again, _Why do you care?_ About forever. About what _having_ forever feels like, when he's been living like he’s running out of time. When he's restless and terrifyingly driven at every practice, and faces official matches like trouncing battlegrounds, the outcomes scars to carry by something permanent.

“Why don’t you care, Iwa-chan?”

—and for all their differences, Hajime can't say he isn't the same, either, and perhaps that's why he doesn't give much thought on this. _I live my life, and I set the pace_. But he also knows there's a certain limit to it, even if it doesn't entirely stop him from trying to break through. Tooru eschews the boundaries he doesn't set himself, and Hajime’s there to remind him of it, with a hit upside the head and wise words and bodily dragging him out of whatever he's got himself into. Just like when Tooru lends a hand on Hajime's back for the push, or to smack him to his senses, or just to linger there. _I’m here if you want to fall. Because I won't let you._

“—there are seven point five billion people in the world,” Tooru continues, sight on the ceiling like he's watching ghosts dance beneath the limelight of cheap fluorescents. “What are the chances of finding your soulmate?”—and, oh. They're talking about that, too.

“...Actually, I remember from some documentary that it's quite high.”

“Yes!” Tooru gripes. “Yes, I _know_. Why, though? There's so little time for _everything_ —imagine if we can be on the Olympic team _forever_.”

“You truly have nothing but volleyball in your head,” Hajime mutters. We. Still _us_. “But”—he tips his chin up, gazes straight at the ceiling lights, and pretends the sting of it is the sun of a summer noon—“it’ll be somewhat lonely. Our families and friends aren’t forever.”

Quiet looms over the next moment. Cicadas sing through the barred window, the gym’s open doors, light from the spaces inside spilling over the road in front. Hajime closes his eyes, the cicadas’ hum a memory from home.

“Ne, Iwa-chan,” Tooru calls with a voice much too small for his usual flair, and Hajime, with eyes closed, encompassed in darkness, tries to catch every single lilt. “If we're still lonely souls by the time we're thirty, let's stay together.”

“Aren't we already doing that? You've always been clingy and you probably won't ever let me have peace.” _And I can't leave you, anyway._ “Getting a girlfriend or married shouldn't change anything.”

“No, I mean _together_ , forever,” Tooru says, not quite above a whisper.

Hajime opens his eyes, craning his head to the side, but Tooru has his face turned away from him, and he can only speculate if the pink flush down his neck is from physical or mental exertion. “Dunno.” He shrugs. “You’ll do stupid things and I might snap and kill you before we’re thirty.”

“Such a brute answer!”

“It’s not as bad as it might be, though,” Hajime muses, and this might be wishful thinking worth realizing. “Us staying together for that long.”

“ _Staying_ , huh. So. Nothing’s gonna change?”

This is when Hajime breathes in, deep and expanding, drowning the lungs with the scent of Salonpas and sweat, summer breeze and a hint of burned rubber soles, and goes to stand up. His footfalls echo in the hush of such a spacious place, yet Tooru doesn't turn to look, as if he knows, _anyway_ , when Hajime settles down closer beside him. Hajime simply reaches out like always, running his fingers through a tousled mess of brown hair.

“Only if you want to.

“Oikawa, say something.

“ _Shittykawa_. Will you at least look at me.

“If I wrestle you over, am I gonna find you crying and dripping snot all over?

“This gym isn't ours, you know, so don't contaminate it with your nasal mucus.”

Tooru snorts, all stuffy nose and held breaths, and lays the back of a wrist over his eyes. Hajime spots the wobbly line of his mouth, a bottom lip gnawed white in some failed attempt at keeping silent; Tooru’s always been loud in everything he does, anyway, and perhaps that's why he cries all ugly and bawling.

“Stupid Iwa-chan.”

Hajime clears his throat. “So,” he says, hoping he won't choke on his own words, “is this your way of confessing? All cryptic messages and hypothetical questions bordering on philosophy?”

He covers Tooru's face with the spread of a palm and Tooru slaps it away as expected, half-hearted, knowing, revealing himself in the process. He glares at Hajime, squinting past the mess of tears and cheeks flushed ruddy and nose all scrunched up. “What, like _you_ would do any better? We would've gone through a mass extinction before you did anything.”

“I think you’ll do stupid things and I’ll eventually be desperate enough to kiss you to shut you up.”

Tooru’s mouth goes agape, for a second. He mashes it shut (and it's definitely been too long for that flush to be solely from exercise) when he finds that Hajime can't keep eye contact during the confession. And he just grins, the smug dumbass.

“I like _like_ you a lot, Iwa-chan.”

Hajime huffs out a breath, squishing Tooru’s cheeks again so he doesn't catch more glimpses of Hajime's own burning face. He smiles, too, when Tooru's laugh only rings melodious.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Their train enters the tunnel, underground darkness coating the windows.

A toddler wails, their mother all _shh_ ’s and whispering warmth, and Tooru just hums an old-learned lullaby, smiling when the mother answers with a grateful yet awed glance.  
  
Tooru finds him by the graze of pinky fingers. "Iwa-chan, are you tired of me yet?”

At this, after ninety-nine years, Hajime's grip on the handrail doesn't strangle. “No,” he tells him as per usual. “Not yet.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "I'm fifteen for a moment  
> Caught in between ten and twenty  
> And I'm just dreaming  
> [Counting the ways to where you are.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tR-qQcNT_fY)"
> 
> -
> 
> this was supposed to follow them throughout the years (& the song) but writing is really hard right now. i want to add chapters and/or a side story, but i'm not sure yet.
> 
> thank you for reading! i'd love to know what you think of this.
> 
> [tumblr post.](http://astersandstuffs.tumblr.com/post/160267425459/weve-passed-the-end-so-we-chase-forever)


	3. we made these memories for ourselves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In some ways, they're not each other's first times.

In some ways, they're not each other's first times.

Plural, because there are many variations of _firsts_ , and it’s not a concept to be terribly avoided or left unspoken. In elementary school, the girls and boys in Hajime's class had held impromptu gatherings and whispered to one another about _first kisses_. They’d discovered _first crush_ and _first date_ in junior high, whistles and giggles following most admissions and comments and quips.

Three years later, in addition to the previous ones, the topic extends to _first time_ , all in all a minor economy of trading secrets and speculations. Hajime admits he might chime in when asked, if only to dispel rumors of Oikawa being a good kisser.

Because he _knows_ the guy, and Oikawa Tooru is more than the graceful flirt others envision him to be. Oikawa Tooru wears his favorite hoodie for _days_ on end (and it's _Hajime_ 's hoodie, complete with the roaring Godzilla embroidered on the front pocket), and eats with his fingers, tearing his milk bread (and Hajime's unguarded lunch) into bite-sized pieces like performing a dissection, and sometimes he’s too exhausted from extra practice to change before bed.

Hajime's refuted later when Oikawa’s ex-girlfriend, humming thoughtfully, winding her hair around her fingers, casually mentions that Oikawa is, in fact, _a great kisser_. This is when Hajime realizes that Oikawa has other first times outside of him.

In turn, he just stomps flat this _crush_ that’s been festering inside him, the _awful_ jealousy in its trail, and swears to not let it flourish beautiful or ugly.

But—

The first time Oikawa got lost, it’d been with Hajime holding his hand and eventually finding their way back home.

When they fell from the ginkgo tree they’d tried climbing, Oikawa failed miserably to hide his crying but still insisted on patching Hajime up with an absurd amount alien-patterned band-aids, chanting _it's okay_ and _Hajime-chan can't die, okay_.

Hajime was there to see Oikawa's eyes gleam with something exuberant when he first managed to hit a serve, and Oikawa for Hajime when he slammed down his first ever good spike. They shared their first bruises and stinging palms and sprained fingers; they went through their first wins and losses just the same.

They went to their first stargazing together, their first Tanabata festival and amusement park, their first aquarium and zoo and museum, where Oikawa made fun of Hajime's slight obsession with aquatic animals and Hajime at Oikawa's conviction of extraterrestrial remains disguised as dinosaur exhibitions.

At eighteen, they toast their first dose of alcohol with each other and don't separate in the face of all hangovers and queasy stomachs. At twenty, they visit the park that’s been on Hajime's wish-list for the first time with all the bugs to watch and catch and set free. At twenty-one, Hajime’s the first to hear from Oikawa when he's accepted into a pro-volleyball league.

At twenty-two, when Oikawa pulls Hajime down for something more than a kiss, _something like love_ , Hajime doesn't mull over the firsts they’d had without each other. He determines to make more for themselves, together and intertwined, and if the smile Oikawa presses against Hajime's is any affirmation, Oikawa’s going to love sharing all the moments to come with him as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [tumblr post.](http://astersandstuffs.tumblr.com/post/160383240954/we-made-these-memories-for-ourselves)


	4. for the sinners to play as saints

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You're cute, Iwa-chan.”
> 
> “I know how to kill your kind, you know.”
> 
> “I just complimented you,” Tooru argues with a huff. “You're literally shirtless and I have my claws just a breadth away from your spine and your pretty little neck. Are you in any position to threaten me?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks to French for reading this over!

Tooru dips five claws in paint, a different color for each one. _Thistle, wisteria, saffron. Lavender, daffodil_. He flicks them lightly to rid of the excess. He recites the spell in his head.

His hand hovers centimeters from the broadness of Iwaizumi's back, all bare and muscled and tan, strangely lacking the scars inevitable with his supposed occupation.

At the view, Tooru hums, appreciative, and asks, “Are you from around here, Mr. Hunter?”

His first customer in four weeks sits upon a stool dragged over from the bar counters. _Oh, how business has been running low lately._ He's refused to tell Tooru his full name. _Just here for a trade_ , he'd said as he slid over his offerings of fresh siren’s tears, an intricate mirror dotted in century-old blood, and poisonous flower crowns of the exotic sorts.

Tooru thinks to pester him, anyway; Iwaizumi looks like he’d be fun to mess with, his permanent scowl a dichotomy with the way he glances around Tooru’s shop with a hint of wistfulness, and Tooru can't say he hasn't always been drawn into the surreal. _Look at where he is now_ , after all.

At the question, Iwaizumi mutters in a near-whisper, but it's not a prayer to protect him from Tooru’s kind. Tooru twists his wrist so his palm faces himself and drags a line of daffodil down Iwaizumi's spine by the blunt surface of his claw. The hunter hides his shivers well.

“Hmm, I didn't quite catch that,” Tooru says.

He did, though, because his hearing is surely sharper than any humans, and Iwaizumi just scoffs at this pretense.

“Miyagi, born and raised,” Iwaizumi says, crossing his arms, steeling himself against Tooru’s claws with a back straightened and hunched shoulders uncoiling but still ever vigilant.

Tooru angles the claw dripping in lavender _just so_ , and this time Iwaizumi doesn't give up the slightest flinch at the sharpness of it. He wonders if the hunter can sense his smile. _A brave one_ , this Iwaizumi, and perhaps he’ll be the one to settle the case that's been constricting Sendai. At least, Tooru thinks he’s come here for that particular job.

“It's strange that I’ve never seen you before,” Tooru says, continuing with his work. “I know everyone in Miyagi.” He coats his fingertips with more paint and flourishes his hand as if he's conducting an orchestra. A circle running through the shoulder blades. Runes borrowed from many traditions. Here and there, a touch of Tooru’s own refinements to make it stronger, last longer, and the better things he’s infamous for.

There's a ghost-mirror leaning against the wall opposite of them, a patch of reflective surface peeking through the dusty bedsheet covering it, and Tooru watches the miniscule changes as Iwaizumi's frown deepens, yet also with something curious. _Oh, he's cute._

“ _Everyone_?” Iwaizumi asks with skepticism amusingly befitting of hunters; always in-between _I’ve seen everything_ and _surprise me_ , those people. Asking for trouble. Actively _seeking_ it, even, but Tooru isn’t much different in this regard.

“Do you want to hear a story, Iwa-chan?”

With the way Iwaizumi growls at him, some could've mistaken him for a coyote. “Don't call me that.”

A graze of thistle along Iwaizumi's nape. _Hmm. He's ticklish there._ Good at hiding it, though.

“But it's such a cute name,” Tooru tells him, a pout at the ready. “You hunters always _want_ to appear all scary and tough. Loosen up a little bit, why don't you?”

“There no chance of that with where I’m going,” says Iwaizumi.

“I thought so. You're going to those crows’ nest, aren't you?”

A shrug. “Someone has to.”

“And you think you'll be the one to succeed?”

“No,” Iwaizumi says, and for the first time since he’s turned away from Tooru, he meets Tooru's eyes with a steadfast gaze over his shoulder. “But I might as well _damn try_.”

There's something unsaid in his declaration— _Well, why don't_ ** _you_** _?_ and Tooru almost bristles at the accusation. But he keeps his composure, doesn't go to dig his claws into the other man’s flesh or cut out his throat. _Brave and interesting_. Iwaizumi riles him up. Tooru wants to both disembowel him and see if Iwaizumi can _do more_.

He dabs full moons and crescents on Iwaizumi's skin, self-made constellations and other planetary alignments, curls of vines-like runes over the hills and valleys of him. “You're cute, Iwa-chan.”

“I know how to kill your kind, you know.”

“I just complimented you,” Tooru argues with a huff. “You're literally shirtless and I have my claws just a breadth away from your spine and your pretty little neck. Are you in any position to threaten me?”

“I wouldn't walk in here without knowing how.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [tumblr post.](http://astersandstuffs.tumblr.com/post/160459266934/for-the-sinners-to-play-as-saints)


	5. club room kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “—I mean, you don't even kiss me in public, Iwa-chan!”

“Um. Should we leave the club room?”

 _Bless him_ , Hajime thinks, past Oikawa’s _endless_ prattle, when the first-year leans to whisper to another. Kindaichi tries so hard, too polite and good-natured for his own well-being, but he's painfully honest and therefore _awful_ at discreet conversations.

Kunimi nods. He zips up his Seijoh jacket without a furtive glance at the ongoing spectacle, as if he can't bother to spend energy watching how immature his upperclassmen are acting. “It’s best to leave them to sort their thing out,” he affirms, all matter-of-fact ( _their thing,_ really? _)_ , and walks out the club room with little more than a _“thank you for today”_. Kindaichi squawks and scrambles to follow him, probably mortified at the premise of being left alone with the third-years.

Bless them.

“—I mean, you don't even kiss me in public, Iwa-chan!”

Hanamaki's lost it and doubled over, far from trying to muffle his laughter behind a palm, and Matsukawa goes to show condolences by a pat on his back. Hajime should be the person to receive things like _condolences_ here, really.

“Don't you love me?” Oikawa gripes, continuing on with his tirade. Apparently, this is _that's it_ for Kyoutani, because he slams his locker shut and promptly stomps out of the room with his face aflame, muttering something under his breath. Yahaba sighs, if strangely amused, bids a thanks for the day to everyone else, and beckons a quietly snickering Watari to join them on the walk home from school.

 _The second-years are getting along well_ , Hajime muses as he futilely attempts to organize the contents of his own locker, as Oikawa drapes his lanky and too-warm self all over Hajime's back.

“Iwa-chan, you”—and his lilt slips from its whiny tone, and Hajime can almost hear him gnawing on his bottom lip and _oh_ , such a telltale from Oikawa is—“you never say _'I love you.’_ Tell the truth.”

“Yes. Please let us know,” says Matsukawa.

“Declare your love,” coos Hanamaki.

“You can't handle the truth,” Hajime tells him in return, and their friends proceed to go all _ohh_ ’s and _ahh_ ’s. But.

Oikawa's grasp on his hand changes, tightens. Like when they were kids and Hajime invited him to catch cicadas ( _so Hajime-chan won’t get lost!_ ). Like when they auditioned for Kitaiichi Volleyball Club ( _because we’ll always get to play together, right?_ ). Like in the hush of a post-confession, when Oikawa's hand found Hajime’s on the sweat-spattered gym floor, first tentative in reaching but tightening to resolute when Hajime just returned his hold with the same sentiment ( _and I'll always be there for you_ ). Back then, they didn't need to exchange any kind of _those three words_.

Hajime heaves out a sigh—the exasperated one, the embarrassed one, the _gods I’m so in love with you_ one—and shifts his hand to intertwine their fingers together, a _holding hands_ touch of the utmost contact and closeness. Some sort of a promise, of _I’m here_ and _We’re here together_.

“Well, look at the time.”

“Hiro, don't we need to do something very important soon?”

“Yes, my dear Issei, we need to go do the very important something.”

“Please keep the club room pure and clean. There are children calling this place home.”

“Aww, you're such a sap.”

And they're alone. And Oikawa doesn't say anything more. He burrows his face into Hajime's shoulder, the heat of his blush palpable through the layers of clothing, and Hajime just cranes his neck to press a firm kiss to Oikawa's forehead.

“You can't handle the truth,” Hajime tells him again— _and neither_ _can I, because I’m so in love with you it's ridiculous_.

Oikawa brings them closer by arms wrapped around Hajime, leaning in, _always leaning into each other_ , and they stay just like this for a while longer. He hides a smile onto Hajime's still heated skin, the small one with the biggest genuinity, the most innate of happiness, and Hajime smiles in secret, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a few of the prompts will be longer and separate fics, i think, so this is completed for now - thank you for reading! i might not be able to reply to comments for a while as i'm quite sick rn - i will, tho! - but i really appreciate them and every feedback always makes me happy (^人^)
> 
> [tumblr post.](http://astersandstuffs.tumblr.com/post/160596934224/club-room-kiss)


	6. rain; chance of a bloom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Come here,” Hajime says, when Oikawa insists on staying outside and drenched in the rain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i felt like using the word 'because’ and this happened. (it's not as angsty as it looks.)

“Come here,” Hajime says, when Oikawa insists on staying outside and drenched in the rain.

He doesn’t tip his umbrella so it’d shelter the both of them. Hands keep by his side, because Hajime might just reach out to wrap one around Oikawa’s waist and draw him closer, ready with the usual scolding of _you’d get water everywhere in your house_ and _do you want to get sick, dumbass_. Because they’re twenty-eight and not eighteen, back when these things were a given. When Oikawa would’ve shut all distances without prompting, like there weren’t any between them in the first place.

(But if Hajime shifts his grasp on the handle _just so_ and the umbrella now leans toward Oikawa like a flower instinctively looking for the sun, _well_. The weight of this rain has been heavy, so his arm is just probably getting tired from holding up this roof.)

But he doesn’t tip his umbrella so it’d shelter them both. They’d made their own choices at twenty-five— _“this isn’t going to work”_ —and wouldn’t it be a tragedy to ruin three years’ hard work of _keeping away_ because of this one fleeting moment, trapped under the rain by _coincidence_ as they wait for the same late bus?

 _Come here_ , he says, in some sort of self-preservation. Let it be Oikawa’s own choice to come closer. But as Hajime keeps his chin up, eyes on the roads and the neon lights-speckled buildings across from the bus stop, his sights drift to the peripherals to find Oikawa Tooru ( _as always_ ). He’s wearing a denim jacket too thin already for early winter, pulled over his head as a makeshift cover. Unlike three years ago, he can withstand this sort of cold a little longer.

Hajime’s heart clenches, when he thinks of the other changes he’d missed.

(He’s gotten a tad taller. His fringe is longer, just by a half or one centimeter. There’s a scar above his right brow bone from when he’d crashed-landed to conquer his final set for the National team—

He still walks with a light skip to his steps. He still hums. He still holds his head high like he’s looking down at everyone else, the crappy dumbass—)

(What’d Oikawa see, when he looks at Hajime?)

They’d made their owns choices, and they would make more to come. On a particularly unspectacular day, Oikawa Tooru makes his:

At Hajime’s call, he looks to the side to find a friend (childhood friend, friend-with-benefits, best friend to lover, ex-lover to friend), past the temporary shelter he offers. Because out of the two of them, it’s Hajime who closes his ears when it rains and thunder roars; it’s Oikawa who’d taken him out to dance in the rain or the falling snow.

At the way Hajime shivers now, just a short bout he’s forgotten to hide—but still looks right on ahead, anyway—Oikawa dares to muster up a smile. He steps into the huddle under an umbrella made for one. He presses his weight into Hajime’s side. 

It does not matter if their skin isn’t making contact, when the warmth grows from somewhere deep inside his chest, like it has always belonged there and just needs a rainy season to bloom again.

 _Hello_ , it says, sounding too much like Oikawa’s smile and voice.

 _Hello_ , Hajime just meets him right back, daring a graze of pinky fingers.

(Oikawa then hooks their pinkies together, because of course he does.)

For the last time today, Hajime shivers again, because rain always finds its way to seep into the bones.

And so does a warmth shared like this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~~i'm sorry for this mess, it's not proofread ;w;~~
> 
> *gazes at your feedback and comments* *bursts into tears of joy* 
> 
> asrkflnd thank you so much everyone (*ﾉωﾉ) i'm so slow at replying, i'm sorry, but lately i've been able to stay awake for longer than four hours so hopefully i'll be back. asjifoijgdpk you all are such lovely people!!! (i hope the longfic will be better ^^)
> 
> [tumblr post.](https://astersandstuffs.tumblr.com/post/162319246434/rain-chance-of-a-bloom)

**Author's Note:**

> thoughts? (^///^)


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